When a user becomes a subscriber to a mobile operator network, the user may have an idea on how much calling will cost under the subscription. The user may be aware of the costs of messages and costs of operator's internal calls. Similarly, the user may have selected a certain amount of minutes/messages to be included in a subscription plan with fixed monthly rate. However, the user cannot currently know, at the time of making the call, whether a certain contact would be included in the subscription plan. It is not neither possible to know, how many minutes and/or messages there are still left in the subscription plan, and what would the minutes/messages exceeding the plan cost. In addition, there are certain numbers, where special pricing is applied. Communication to company numbers, special service numbers and roaming/VoIP cases are not often included into the subscription plan. Further, a number transfer from one operator to the other causes doubts about prices. The telephone number comprises an operator code in the beginning of the number, which operator code indicates the operator to which the number was at first subscribed. However, the users have a possibility to bring the number along, when subscribing to another operator. Therefore, the number's operator code does not necessarily match the operator the number is currently subscribed to. Therefore, the user does not know, whether the number s/he is calling to belongs to the same operator or to another operator, which may affect on prices of the call. For all these reasons, a user may appreciate knowing the price of a call in advance, i.e. before making any call.
There are solutions for informing the user on the price of the call. For example, publication U.S. Pat. No. 7,206,570 discloses a method for providing price information to subscribers. When a subscriber dials a call number, s/he obtains information on the rate to expect for a communication by means of short messaging service (SMS). The solution provides means for informing the user if the actual price is not the same as the price to be expected. Another example is a Viber system that allows free calls to other Viber users. The Viber users are indicated in the phone book so that the user will know, to whom free calls can be made.
However, these solutions are aimed for a limited exploitation, and therefore they do not take into account the numerous pricing options (company numbers, service numbers, roaming, messages, fixed rate) that can be found from the current communications technology. These solutions are neither capable of displaying pricing information for an arbitrary contact in a contact book so that a user would notice immediately, what a call would cost.
Thus, there is a need for a solution that would indicate the user instantly when contacting what kind of pricing model is applied to a certain contact.